


With Golden Hands

by VJR22_6



Series: teamuncleweek2020 [3]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Family Fluff, Fluff, Gen, prompt was parenting!, teamuncleweek2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:55:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27253777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VJR22_6/pseuds/VJR22_6
Summary: Scrooge takes care of Donald when he's young, and many years down the line, Donald takes care of his boys in much the same way.
Relationships: Dewey Duck & Donald Duck & Huey Duck & Louie Duck, Donald Duck & Scrooge McDuck
Series: teamuncleweek2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1985648
Comments: 12
Kudos: 91





	With Golden Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again, another Team Uncle Week fic for you all! The prompt today was "parenting" so I wanted to work with the parallels between Scrooge parenting Donald and Donald parenting HDL. The title is from "Send Me On My Way" by Rusted Root.
> 
> As always if you like this, please leave a comment! I love to know what parts you guys liked and how it made you feel.

Outside the bedroom window, the city lights shimmer like trapped fireflies, forever destined only to cast sparkling light toward the perpetually uncaring night sky. Donald sits on the windowsill to watch them, leaning his forehead against the glass. It’s colder than he’d expect from an August night, but he’s too burnt-out to care.

There’s band-aids on his legs and one hand, and his right arm has a white bandage wrapped around it, which he tugs his sleeve down to hide. He bandaged it himself as soon as he was able, but he didn’t do it right, and it’s a little too late to ask for help even if he wanted to.

He’s not sure quite how it feels to be the ball in a game of tennis, but if he had to guess, he’d say something like this. Stupid dragon creatures roaring and scratching and catching his feathers on fire.

Della, buried in blankets on her bed, snores loudly. He looks over at her briefly, then shakes his head. At least she didn’t get hurt today. He doesn’t know if he’d be able to handle seeing his sister in danger like the kind he’s put in so often.

Donald sits by the window for a while longer. He knows he should lie down and rest, Della will surely haul him up at an hour far too early for his taste. But he looks out at the city, traffic drifting by in a silent stream of light, and he feels restless down to his core.

If it were any other time, he’d grab his guitar and play something. Probably an angry song, just to give this whole thing a space to escape into. But it’s late, and he doesn’t want to wake Della or bother Duckworth or Unca….

The hallway floor creaks, and Donald glances up to see Scrooge peeking through the door.

“Aye, lad, what are ye still doing up? It’s almost three am!” He murmurs, glancing at Della briefly. “Ye should’ve been asleep hours ago!”

“Not tired,” he answers simply, turning toward the city once more. He draws his knees to his chest, ignoring the way his muscles ache when he does it. Three is… later than he thought, but it doesn’t matter. He’s fine.

“Ye need rest, lad,” Scrooge responds, crossing the room slowly. His cane clicks with every step.

“I’m fine. Just a little wound up, is all.”

“Course ye are, after a day like that.”

Scrooge sits down opposite him, filling the space left on the windowsill when Donald curled up like he is. There’s a quiet pause between them, and Donald silently soaks in the attention. He’d never outright ask for anyone’s company these days, but he wants others’ to notice him more often than not.

Maybe part of that’s because he feels left behind, he supposes. Living in the great Scrooge McDuck’s shadow is enough to make him feel unimportant on its own. Add in Della always taking the lead on their outings, Gladstone stealing the spotlight when they’re together, baby Fethry being the favorite at family gatherings… it really, really weighs him down knowing he’s never the first choice. Actually, oftentimes he’s completely forgotten, unless they need someone to be bait for some trap or a living punching bag.

But his unca _did_ come to check on him tonight, so he’ll take the little moments when he can get them.

He holds his sore arm to his chest. It still feels like it did when it was on fire, as if he put hot coals between his skin and the bandages. Despite his best efforts of hiding it, it really hurts, and Scrooge picks up on that quickly.

“Lad,” he asks in a careful tone, “can I see yer arm?”

Donald rolls his eyes and shrugs off his flannel, forcing down the warmth bubbling up in his chest and reaching for his throat. He’s got to stick to his cool kid persona even if it’s just his family he’s around these days.

“Oh, Donald, ye poor thing.”

Scrooge takes his small hand, looking at the tangled, messy bandages. Pink slivers poke through here and there, betraying the severity of the damage underneath. Donald hadn’t expected it to be so bad.

He wants to protest as Unca Scrooge scoops him up, wants to fight being carried like the baby he’s not, wants to be strong and self-sufficient. But the truth of the matter is that he’s _not_ okay right now and the help is, as much as he’s fighting admitting it, needed. He didn’t ask, anyway, so if Della picks on him for this it’s easy to put Scrooge at fault.

Scrooge abandons his cane in favor of hauling Donald to the bathroom. When they get there, he sits Donald on the bathroom counter, which is about as icy on his tail feathers as the window was to his forehead. His unca clicks on the overhead light, and Donald shies away from the harshness of it. But from the pain comes healing, because it’s not long after that Scrooge is unwrapping the soiled bandages and covering the wound in soothing ointment.

As he works, Scrooge hums, and though it’s a rougher rendition, Donald recognizes his mother’s lullaby. His heart aches for what he doesn’t have, and for what he does, but always seems to push just a little too far out of reach.

“Did ye brush yer teeth tonight, lad?”

“Yeah, I, uh. Duckworth made me. You can ask him.”

“Are ye sure?” Scrooge asks, and Donald folds his arms over his chest gingerly, but with a fierce scowl.

Scrooge laughs briefly, a playful glint sparking to life in his eyes for just a second. “I trust ye. And ye got enough to eat and drink today? Plenty of water?”

“Well… I ate with you and Della on the way home, remember?”

“Lad,” Scrooge’s tone takes on a concerned weight, as if the burden of caring for Donald is weighing on him heavily. Or as if he’s dropped everything else in favor of focusing on his nephew, but Donald doesn’t believe that there’s any way that’s the case.

“I’m fine.”

“Donald.”

The teen looks up, meeting his uncle’s eyes, and the care within his gaze is too much for Donald to keep eye contact for even a few seconds.

“I can get more to drink in the morning. One day of being dehydrated isn’t gonna kill me.”

“Ach, maybe not, but it’s not healthy either way. Tell ye what. You get changed into your pajamas, and I’ll go make you a hot chocolate to drink before bed.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“I _want_ to. Now,” he lifts Donald off the counter, and deposits him on his feet in the hallway. “Go change. I’ll be quick.”

Donald grumbles, but he knows better than to argue with Scrooge McDuck when his mind is made up. He stalks to his room, swaps his emo outfit for an oversized band T-shirt, and climbs into bed, all the while careful not to wake his sister.

Scrooge brings a steaming drink to him a few moments later. Donald sits up, holding the warm mug like a trophy, watching the curls and twirls of steam take flight and dissolve into the night. His unca sits beside him, and for a moment he drinks in the comfort of it as much as he drinks in the cocoa, though the latter scalds his tongue and leaves burning regret behind. The former transforms into a warm embrace, pulling him sideways into sweet affection.

“Solo act” teen Donald Duck is not one for hugs. Or being held. Or generally, any physical love at all. But tonight he is worn, down to his bones, and he’s feeling deeply forgotten. He sighs the biggest sigh his little chest can hold, and rests his head on his unca’s shoulder. And Scrooge, with a soft and knowing smile, wraps a blanket around him so he can rest, safe and sound.

Years pass. Donald grows into a responsible, if fiery spirit, and Scrooge stays much the same, though he gradually seems less focused on money and more on family. Though he would never, ever say so. Their adventures continue, through thick and thin, and everything seems right. But Della… Della grows in a different direction.

Much like a sunflower facing away from the sun, she seems captivated by just about everything she’s not supposed to be. Seeking the unknown, rather than focusing on her little triplets. The vastness of the sky, instead of the Earth and the adventure that’s already there. She reaches for space, and it calls back to her in a voice none of the rest of them can hear.

And she gets lost in it.

She goes missing among the stars, caught in a cosmic storm, leaving behind three children who will never know the way their mother’s lullaby sounds. She goes up in a rocket built by Scrooge’s hands, and Donald makes the decision that those hands will not be good enough for his sister’s boys. And he takes them away.

He spends ten years mourning her every day, grieving the loss of a sister and an uncle and adventures, all at once, even if he really didn’t like adventure most of the time. He weeps for what could have been, what should _still_ be, every night he tucks the triplets in alone.

And then, as quickly as it went away, a decade without everything he once loved comes crashing down and giving way to Scrooge in his life once more.

At first, it’s rough. Of course it is. Every hallway and empty room reminds him that the only one who can fill this hole in his heart is in space. But he sets his heart on caring for the kids, and even after adventures he doesn’t go on anymore, he feels like he’s doing that right, at least. He feels like he’s doing what his sister would want and that's really all he can do.

“Huey, did you brush your teeth?”

“Yeah! You can ask Mrs. B., she made all of us brush.”

He glances over his shoulder, and Huey’s grinning with clean teeth. Good kid.

“Alright. Bedtime is in five, and _no_ flashlight reading tonight. You need to get up early tomorrow!”

“Yes, Uncle Donald.”

Huey scampers off, and a tired Louie appears in the vacated bathroom doorway. He’s typing something on his phone, and he leans against the doorframe with disinterest. Donald smiles softly and turns back to the reason he’s in the bathroom in the first place. Dewey.

“—But Webby said that she didn’t think I could make the jump! I sure showed her, huh?” He laughs, swinging his little legs from where they hang over the edge of the counter. “Anyway! I slipped a little bit, and Uncle Scrooge had to come help me up.”

“Please be a little more careful,” Donald sticks a large band-aid to the kid’s scraped-up knee. “It’s bad enough you came home like this. What if you get hurt worse next time?”

“Aw, I’m okay!”

“But what if you _weren’t_?”

“You worry too much, Uncle Donald!”

Dewey reaches out for him, little hands opening and closing like a child’s would, but effectively asking to be picked up. Donald complies, setting him down gently and ruffling his spiky hair. Dewey grins in return, ever hungry for attention, and Donald thinks that he _can’t ever worry enough, with how these three act like Della a little more each day_.

With Dewey ready for bed, Donald turns his full attention to the littlest triplet. Louie has one earbud in, and a video playing on his phone, but the way he’s standing betrays discomfort.

“Hey,” he kneels down, catching Louie’s attention when he hits eye level, “what’s wrong, bud?”

“Nothing. Just… just wanted to say goodnight, is all.” He shoves his phone into his pocket, tangling his earbud wires as they follow it. “Wanted to wait til you were done with the others.”

“Right,” Donald replies. “Sure. Hey?”

Louie looks up at him, seemingly knowing the questions to follow.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine. Just… had a long day, and I’m tired. That’s all.”

Donald frowns. Of course he wouldn’t outright say what’s bothering him. For all the differences between them, Louie is still a kid navigating the world of adventure and family much in the same way Donald once was. He might not even know why he feels bad and it’s up to his guardian to figure out what’s wrong.

“Did you get enough sleep last night?”

A quiet nod.

“Enough to eat and drink today?”

“Well…. I ate with the others before we got home.”

“Louie.”

“I can get more in the morning. Besides, you’re busy with the others.”

“I’m never too busy,” he reassures, then ruffles Louie’s hair. “I’m going to go tuck your brothers in. Why don’t you put your pajamas on, and then I’ll make you a cup of cocoa before you go to bed too.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to. Come on, now.”

He tucks the older two boys in, and turns out their light. They’re both drowsy already, and by the time he makes a warm cup of cocoa and brings it upstairs, they’re asleep. He sits down beside the bed, and Louie takes a seat beside him.

He wraps a blanket around the little one’s shoulders, and they sit together for a long while, safe and sound.


End file.
